Posted on 09/08/2009 1:22:11 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
In a classic "damned if they did, damned if they didn't" situation developing with respect to White House hiring practices of disgraced and resigned White House Green Jobs Czar VAN JONES, through the magic and wonder of the internet and its archiving functions, the White House today has been caught in either a BIG LIE or a major scandal regarding the actual status of it's hiring practices--in contradiction to it's stated policy initially indicated in President-elect Obama's post-election days and through the transition.
The webpage link to apply official was HERE. This was at the transition team change.gov website.
From their site, archived:
"If you apply for a position now, you will not need to apply again after January 20th. Applications submitted now to the Obama-Biden Transition Project will be retained and considered by the Office of Presidential Personnel after President-Elect Obama takes office.
Application Process:
Please complete and submit the on-line Expression of Interest Form below. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to a more complete on-line application. Upon submitting your full on-line application you will receive an e-mail acknowledgment. If and when you are considered for a specific position, you will be asked to fill out additional forms, including financial disclosures, and be subject to other reviews which may include FBI background checks."
The policy in question is that the White House stated during transition that it would require extensive forms to be filled out for many government appointees. A number of news articles and blog notes at the time (November/December) wrote on this story, some mentioning how applicants were scurrying to provide all the details required to work in the White House.
Exerpt:
If that doesn't bother you, go ahead and fill out the application at change.gov/jobs/apply_app/ -- but the information is not stored at change.gov.
Notice the bottom of the page where it says the application system is powered by Cluen Technology(?)
Click the link and be redirected to the Cluen Corporation, an 18-year-old private firm that provides recruiting software solutions.
The basic idea behind the company's Searchlight technology is a recruiting agency can collect data through online forms that are masked to be at the agency's website and the data is stored on secure Cluen servers.
A tactic used by a recruiting firm should be different for a presidential transition team, right? Surely, job data would be stored on a government server somewhere? Think again. Check out https://searchlight2.cluen.com/CandidateLogin.asp?compid={BBCFD5B2-E18C-4307-BEFA-BD007B34C07D}&layout={D3264583-16A1-451A-A7DC-3BC1F4F61B56}, which provides the true "power" of the attribution line at the change.gov application page.
In other words, not only are prospective applicants asked to submit 63 answers with personal information, but the data is stored at the Cluen Corporation. Perhaps this is included in the change.gov privacy policy under "physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards." Maybe I'm off my rocker, in which case you can donate money to the 501c(4) here.
If I'm not off my rocker, what are your thoughts?
Then the Sacramento Bee said on December 14, 2008:
"....then there's the question of how thousands of job applications from people seeking political appointments in the Obama administration are read. According to a recent New York Times story, "more than 50 staff aides" are classifying and downloading a record 300,000 e-mail applications for roughly 3,300 positions. (That's 6,000 applications per aide.) The number of applicants is expected to double by Inauguration Day.
"Good luck!" reading their submissions, responded Marlyn McGrath, the director of admissions at Harvard College, where, she said, a single thorough reading of a typical applicant's file takes about 45 minutes..."
Botttom lines which are very disturbing and the White House must insist it was one or the other:
a) If Van Jones filled out the detailed form that would have snagged his Marxist-Leninist/radical background, arrest record, etc., then the White House is LYING. (If Van Jones filled out and submitted, but left those associations and incidents off, then he himself would be in some trouble.)
OR
b) If Van Jones did NOT fill out such a detailed form, then it not only shows a massive vulnerability in Federal (Executive Office of the President) Hiring, but also directly CONTRADICTS the stated Transition Team policy for any applicants to important jobs, Van Jones' included.
In either case, they are liars or, they are incompetent which means there must be a comprehensive, transparent review of White House Applicants for positions from the time the Transition Team was set up and started taking applicants, including of course ALL the "Czars". To not do this otherwise would be a national security risk.
This issue does not end with Van Jones, now does it?
If Van Jones in fact submitted the material in digital fashion, very likely it is still on the servers of Cluen Corporation.
This company can be subpoened as a part of a Congressional Investigation, to at least perhaps make an independent verification into whether or not Mr. Jones actually filled out the extensive security clearance information that the White House said was "policy" in their own words, but which Mr. Van Jones--to be entrusted with the dispensing of millions upon millions of US tax dollars in an Executive Office of the President job--mysteriosly did not undergoe as he applied, again in the White House' own words. If they falsified, misrepresented or scrubbed such documents they would be in federal violation. Other subpoenae and/or FOIA requests and Congressional inquiries can be made directly to White House hiring authorities, both present and during the transition period. Some of these URL links are dead but that does not mean that archived or retrievable information does not lie deep beneath their cyber cemetery headstones.
OK, guys. This sounds very "fishy." What 'Gibbs'?!
This administration is filled with con artists and buffoons from top to bottom.
As is now being revealed. I have never seen anything like it. Can you imagine four years of this, and we have only had seven months!!??
What security clearance? Do any of those Czars have clearance?
Then, they were bragging about the most transparent government ever, and waving a detailed application form in front the media lapdogs to prove it.
Now, they are saying "special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions. The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation."
Now, they are basically, saying "we won, so we will make and change the rules, and the government, in the way we wish."
An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
"It wouldn't be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions," the official said. "It's just fair to say that he didn't go through the most rigorous vetting process."
Translation: We knew everything about him, and we approved. Why vet him? We recruited him.
ding ding ding ding ding..... a winner
Congressional oversight sorely is needed/all the other Czar's hiring procedures need to be brought out in the sunlight of "transparency". (Of course, conveniently for the Obamatrons, Congress is controlled by Democreeps, with just enough RINOS in there to sit on their thumbs, that not much will get done). We may have to march in there and remove them all sitting on top the furniture when it is all said and done (figuratively speaking here, folks).
The survey also asked for any names uesed to post stuff on web sites, blogs etc..
Vetting, We don’t need no stinkin vetting.
Obama knows he has to do something about that pesky Internet. Too much freedom there. It’s even more dangerous than talk radio.
Bump.
Speaking of transparency, where is the stimulus money that hasn't been spent? A significant amount of it is apparently reserved for the fifedoms of the czars, such as Van Jones.
From a Washington Post interview, via RedState:
S. ROMANO: The stimulus bill—earmarked $60 billion. Am I correct in that?
MR. JONES: It’s close to $80 billion for–for–
MS. ROMANO: It’s $80 billion.
You and the Administration have estimated what, 2 to 5 million jobs could be created?
MR. JONES: Well, you know, there are–we have a potential in the total $787 billion–
–that is a part of the energy package, according to the Council for Economic Advisors, to create about 6.8 million job years total, and then, as–as we go forward, the subset of that, which is about that $80 billion, will produce green jobs. So, the total–the total number of jobs for the entire recovery package is 6.8 million job years.
Note the newspeak in the last paragraph. When asked how many jobs the money will create, Van Jones gives a garbled response, not in terms of jobs, but in terms of "job years." So one million people working 6.8 years could cost 80 billion, or half a million people working 13.6 years...and so on.
The problem with revolutionaries is that they have no idea how to run an economy, once they seize control of it. And this guy's economic brilliance is about as good as it gets.
THIS AND they broke (what 2 statutes) when they put the report people to informant@WH.gov.
There is a fallacy in the thinking here. The long paperwork process is for job applicants, i.e. those applying for a job.
The thoroughly discredited Van Jones did not apply for the job. He was asked to come to the White House. It seems probable that he was always intended to have a permanent position and the Green Jobs position was created as a title.
Those who were asked and did not apply are exempt from the vetting.
He had to fill out form 86
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/08/valerie-jarretts-show/
It answered the WHOLE QUESTION posed in this thread.
What the did was the split hairs in their response.
They tried to wiggle out of the embarrassment and act surprised, so they said "Van did not fill out the questionnaire."
Fine.
But then the failed to mention the real heart of the matter.
He filled out a Form 86. THAT also requires specific, detailed answers on his background.
It is now coming out that on that one, he lied. But it is also true that his document would be on file, and would / could contain very damaging information in his history that most on staff legal advisors would say is a *red flag* (sorry for the pun) for hiring.
So now, we can answer the question and say YES, he was "vetted", and YES, thee are serious holes in the system, somebody overruled the investigtors probably and had him hired anyway. OK,WHO??!! Who signed off on Van and how far up the ladder did they give agreeent to this?
This is going to get very interesting.
correcton, S-86 Form
many typos for word processing rapidly!
“This administration is filled with con artists and buffoons from top to bottom.”
Starting with the tip-top clown Himself...though I’m not sure if he is a con artist or a buffoon.
It’s exhausting, isn’t it?
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